Time’s up for the Yes2Rail blog, which I launched on June 30, 2008 as a paid consultant on Honolulu's elevated rail project. Yes2Rail’s August 13, 2012 post was its last following the author's move to Sacramento, CA. You’re invited to read four-plus years of information-packed entries, many of which are linked at our “aggregation site.” Look for the paragraph with red copy in the right-hand column, below. Mahalo for all the positive comments Yes2Rail received since its start.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Being the News Isn’t Our Goal, but When We Are, It’s Appropriate To Give the Rest of the Story

Yes2Rail became the news
yesterday. That’s never our intention, but now that it’s happened, today’s post
is a response.

I’m a member of the rail
project’s public involvement team and have been writing this blog since 2008. Today’s
post is number 770 in the series, and I can only guess about the number of words in this space,
but they’re in the high hundreds of thousands.

Yes2Rail is one of many
tools the team uses to provide information about the rail project to the public
– how it will work, the communities it will serve, its benefits, its speed, its
cost and on and on.

The rail project obviously
isn’t being planned and built in a vacuum. For a representative sampling of rail opponents’
commentaries and criticisms of the project, you can click on the “aggregation site” link in the right-hand column.

This being an election year,
rail is the biggest issue in the mayoral race. As proposals have been floated
to kill the rail project and replace it with other transportation plans, such
as bus rapid transit, managed lanes and/or at-grade rail, Yes2Rail has
commented on those plans.

My commentaries have
compared BRT and the other proposed modes to elevated rail. When those
comparisons have been unfavorable, I’ve said so. For example, my primary
criticism of BRT is that buses inarguably must eventually be reintroduced to
and delayed by street-level traffic congestion – something elevated rail will
never experience.

Criticizing those
alternatives to rail is not the same as criticizing the proponents. There’s a
difference, and while I respect the viewpoint of those who think they’re the
same, I have to disagree.

As a former City Hall
reporter for the Honolulu Advertiser, I write Yes2Rail from a journalist’s
perspective. These commentaries also have addressed the media’s apparent reluctance
to ask the questions that need asking about the so-called alternatives to rail
transit.

As early as January,
Yes2Rail noted that details about the alternative transportation proposals were
virtually non-existent, so it was impossible to truly understand how BRT, for
example, could be better than Honolulu’s elevated rail system.

Eventually, even the
Star-Advertiser wondered the same and printed an editorial(subscription) calling for those
details to be released. You're invited to read Yes2Rail's post about this editorial.

Yes2Rail serves an
educational function by making comparisons between competing transportation
systems. If those competing systems have glaring deficiencies compared to rail,
I say so.

That’s not the same as
criticizing the messenger, which seems to be what Yes2Rail is experiencing
now. I hope that clears up some of the concern about this blog and why I write
it.

3 comments:

Roy Kamisato
said...

For the record I am in no way connected with the Honolulu transit project. Just a concerned citizen who is trying to understand the facts through the fog of politicians and newspaper columnist who have there own agendas. The root of the problem is a media which gives equal footing to deliberate half truths and the actual truth. This puts pressure on honest politicians to become very political. I have no problem with politicians asking about public expenditures. It is their duty to do so even if their motives are political. And just for the record my posts are not political and only reflect my opinion. And I approve this message.

I might have less sympathy for spending on providing public information if the reporters and commentators hadn't done such a piss-poor job on rail for so long, continuing with the naive approach to this political dog and pony show by a few council members seeking re-election or higher office. Groan....

Yes -- that's pretty much what it was, an attention-getting, politics-inspired media play. Unfortunately, it worked. HART's public involvement team didn't enjoy much if any backing from above despite its exceptional success (see this blog's final post on 8/13/12), and two weeks to the day after the above post, nearly the entire team was notified of its impending termination. We may not have survived the contretemps as individuals, but the rail project did, and that's what counts.

This Isn't Political

Yes2Rail is a blog about the Honolulu rail transit project, which has become the key issue in this year’s mayoral race. We comment on the candidates’ plans to address Oahu’s growing congestion problem and whether those plans could meet the need as well as elevated rail can and will. That’s not the same as criticizing the candidates, and we urge our readers to recognize the difference.

Another red-light runner meets Denver at-grade train, 6.13.12

Honolulu rail will be elevated, with zero possibility for accidents like those shown in this column in cities with at-grade systems. Visit our "aggregation site" for much more on why elevated rail is the only reasonable way to build Honolulu rail.

What riding the train will avoid

Bus Accident Aftermath on H-1

'Black Tuesday'--9/5/06 Crash Produced Nightmare Commute

Typical H-1 Traffic

About Me

After five years of active-duty service as an Army officer with duty stations in West Berlin and South Vietnam, reported and edited for newspapers and broadcast stations (including all-news radio) in Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles and Honolulu. Covered Honolulu city government for the Honolulu Advertiser and KGMB-TV. Served on Congressman Cec Heftel's staff in Honolulu and Washington, then managed corporate communications and was Hawaiian Electric Company's spokesman for nearly a decade. A communications consultant for 19 years before moving to California in 2012. Launched, produced and hosted Hawaii Public Radio's "live" weekly "Energy Futures" public affairs program in 2009-10. Authored books on The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific ("Punchbowl" 1982) and on the decline of standard grammar in business and society ("Me and Him Are Killing English!" 2007). Now an information officer with the California Department of Water Resources.